Laziza means "delicious" or "delightful" in Arabic. Despite the prohibition against alcohol in many countries in the Middle East, beer has long been popular in Lebanon as a holiday or beach drink. Mr. George Gellad started Laziza in 1931, the first brewery in the Middle East. The lager beer became the most popular in Lebanon, until the brewery was damaged during the civil war and ceased production in 1990.

In 1999, Georges Khazam, grandson of the company's founder, began selling Laziza beer again, as well as a non-alcoholic version. Both drinks were bottled by Bavaria in The Netherlands. After a bitter pricing battle with Almaza brewery in the early 2000s, Lazia was bought out by Almaza and Dutch multi-national Heineken in 2003, which discontinued the company's beer sales. The non-alcoholic Laziza is now exported throughout the Middle East, where non-alcoholic malt brews are a growing market.

Unlike other non-alcoholic malt beverages, Laziza is not made by removing the alcohol from a fermented beverage. Instead the malted barley and hops are simply used as flavoring and sweetener.

Review

Fizzy stuff. I like the sizzle of the carbonation on my tongue but I'm not crazy about the flavor of this one. Its sweet but the sweet peach flavor is offset by sour hops. Mostly it just tastes like exploding soda bubbles when I close my mouth.

Its not a bad drink, but has nothing to recommend it either. Its bubbly, thats about all.